And We Shall Rise Again
by Touch of Grey
Summary: I'd save the universe a thousand times over, just to bring you back to me...Boostle.


Ted.

After the Crisis, the one that they _swore_ would be the final one, the _infinite _one, there were still the funerals. Not many people know this, but the day of the Superboy memorial was also the day that Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, was put to rest.

I think that there were six of us there.

Me and Skeets were there, of course. I was giving the eulogy. Then there was Bea and Oberon, Guy, J'onn, and, well, that was it. I was surprised that Babs didn't show up. I mean, she was like your bestest geek pal or something, your technopathic equal. When I asked her about it, she hadn't even _known_. She had been with Nightwing and Robin at Superboy's memorial. God knows, the kid needed all the support he could get.

You knew about them, right? Robin and Superboy?

I'm pretty sure that Batman, Superman and the Flash aside, everyone in the caped community knew about those two. It was an unspoken thing, like with Nightwing and Arsenal or Gar and Vic.

Or you and me.

Yeah, yeah, we denied it constantly for _years_, didn't we? I think by about, oh, year five, maybe? Yeah, by year five, the only people we were honestly fooling were ourselves. Bea saw it, Tora saw it, hell, _Guy Gardner_ and fucking _Lobo_ saw it. Why did we wait so long to accept the inevitable? The scary, freaky, abso_fucking_lutely true fact about the Blue and the Gold. We were totally gay.

For each other.

I'm pretty sure that when we first met, I'd have sooner jumped into a vat of boiling babies than admit I was even _slightly_ gay for _anyone_. But I'm also pretty sure that I liked you the moment we met, and that doesn't happen to me _ever_. We were best friends, super buddies, kings of the prank, the comedy duo. We were the Blue and freaking Gold.

And then, it all just ended.

I left the JLI, you decided to say to hell with it with the dieting thing and got, er, plump. Okay, you got fat, but you also got over it, which is just a tribute to you. I got back into the team spirit way of life, and the Blue and the Gold rode again. Sort of.

Okay, so we fought more than we ever had in the history of our friendship. But something good came out of all those arguments, too.

Remember, after we'd just gotten back from that alternate dimension we'd landed in once we got out of hell, that huge fight we had? We were yelling and accusing and punching and somewhere along the line, we'd ended up on the floor of your room kissing like it was going out of style. And I've got a feeling that if the alarm hadn't rang, we would've had the hottest, angriest sex ever, right on the floor. Which would have been _awesome_.

But the alarm rang, and hot angry sex was put on hold in favor of saving the day from Weather Wizard. Why can't the Flash keep his damned Rogues gallery in Central City where it belongs?

Remember all the times we tried to pick up where we'd left off, and Bea or Gardner would keep crashing through the wall/door/ceiling and we'd have to pretend to be looking for the contacts neither of us actually wore? God, that was frustrating. I've never worked so hard for sex in my entire _life_. Good thing that I was completely in love with you, or else I might have given up after the first nine dozen interruptions.

Finally getting to do it almost _ten months later_ was possibly the best thing in the history of ever. We were in the Bug, we were both in sweats and you were wearing my old (or new. Or not-yet-in-existence. Damn time travel.) football jersey with my last name on the back. I joked that I'd branded you and you stopped whatever you were doing with the Bug's navigational system to glare playfully at me and declare that no one owned you. You had a smear of completely random grease on your face, your hair was sticking to your forehead, and you were wearing the ugliest pair of sweatpants in the history of the universe, and I just couldn't help myself. Call me crazy, call me sick, call me anything you want, but I swear by all that is holy that you, Ted Kord, are the second sexiest, most amazing person on this or any planet. The first, of course, is me, by the way. I'd been joking when I originally said it, but you didn't argue against it, and that made me feel pretty warm and fuzzy inside. We were the only two people in the world that day, and I never wanted that to end.

And then, it did. Max, our sleazy boss, our jerky _friend_, turned out to be Checkmate, just like you'd said. You were right, Ted! You were right and _everyone_, even _Batman_ was going to own up to it! But you were dead. People finally realized how great you were, and you were dead. And to add insult to injury, Superboy turns around and saves the multiverse, dying in the process. And everyone forgot about you again.

But not me, Ted. Never me. I'd rather die myself than forget about you.

The following year was, essentially, hell. I threw myself into heroing, got pigheaded about it, discovered that my _other_ best friend was evil and messing with the history of the multiverse, and got myself killed.

Not really, though.

I triumphed in the end, Skeets was fixed, and now I'm Master of Time and Space.

And I'm bringing you back.

Rip Hunter promised me, he _swore _that after I saved history _again_, we'd go back in time and bring you back to life, stop you from getting shot in the first place. We'll be screwing with the time stream in a very major way, but you'll be back. Ted Kord will return triumphant, and the Blue and Gold will ride again. Well, if we can convince Jamie to choose a new name. But the kid wasn't living up to yours or Dan's names, anyway, so it's not like it really matters. Because you'll be back with me.

In fact, in the long run, to me, nothing else really matters. Just you.

Ted.

Fini

My little contribution to the Blue and the Gold. The timing and events may be a little off, but its been awhile since I've gone through my old issues of JLI, and I never read anything from Infinite Crisis or the countdown to, so that might play a rather big part. Review, all, or feel my wrath!


End file.
